My Annual Favorite Street Sign

Scout Lake, 11-11-07

I'd heard that the weather in the mountains wouldn't be too bad (always a subjective notion), so off I went with a neighbor to see if the big storms last year had obliterated the road to the Scout Lake trailhead. The old logging road was potholed enough, but entirely driveable.

There is a very underused road partway up the main logging road, and that's where we began our hike. The weather was very grey, but the snow line was very clear and we were going to go above it. We loaded up on the usual extra clothing, food, H2O, gloves, and hats. And did we ever need them when we got to the lake at 3900' and the wind came down the side of the cirque and across the water! It must have easily been in the 20s with the windchill.

Talus covered much of this side of the lake. Lots of avalanche potential when heavy snow. And of course I'm standing on the icy, snowy rocks at the base of that talus in the bottom picture.The path parallels Hansen Creek and one would think that you could just walk along the banks, but no, there are some nice 10 - 20' dropoffs with waterfalls, tons of fallen trees and defoliated Devil's club (thorns wholely intact). Redtwig dogwood, brilliant green ferns, golden orange chantarelle mushrooms, and dark, dark green conifers made up most of the landscape until we got into the snow, and it all became the dark green equivalent of sepia and white. I imagine in a few weeks there will be at least a foot or two of snow, and white and the dark brown of any exposed trunks will dominate the visual field.

This little waterfall is just below the outlet of Scout Lake.

But the few inches of sticking snow that we walked through was plenty cold and Scout Lake was starting to freeze over with a slushy layer that rippled in places according to whatever was underneath it. A waterbug skimmed the surface and I can't imagine that it had much of a protective fat layer to hold it over the winter. The reflected trees and rocks on the glassy surface resembled a Fair Isle sweater pattern.

The hike up was 1 1/2 hours, only 1 hour down - pretty slippery mud along the way and several blowdowns to climb over. Oh, yes, and there was that 30' traverse over the creek balancing on 2 large trees...

This is only the last third of the crossing.

Coming down the road we had a clear view of the Granite Mt. lookout across I-90. A dusting of snow covered its bald top and I'm sure the wind coming down the I-90 valley kept it even colder than where we had been!

Lookout at the very top of Granite Mt.